Access to Health-Related Goods (Bioethics & Human Rights‪)‬

There are many good reasons for a merger between bioethics and human rights. First, though, significant philosophical groundwork must be done to clarify what a human right to health would be and--if we accept that it exists--exactly how it might influence the practical decisions we face about who gets what in very different contexts. Bioethics has gone global. No longer primarily limited to the hospital or doctor's office, bioethics has expanded its purview to accommodate issues of global significance: pandemics, international drug trials, physician brain-drain, human genetic engineering, population control, and access to pharmaceuticals, to name but a few. In response to this shift, commentators have called for human rights--a ready-made, legally sanctioned, universal moral framework--to serve as the lingua franca of the new global bioethics. Claiming that traditional bioethical principles are excessively focused on the individual and lack universal traction, proponents of this movement argue that human rights can provide much-needed guidance on difficult health-related issues that affect whole nations, populations, and even humanity itself.